there is no denying from my part that i love pierregagnaire's food (let's be clear that i do not know him personally, however i would love to have him over for dinner at my home for dinner - a leg of lamb of something simple like this of course...) so, perhaps it makes me biased, or perhaps not....

bottom line is that tonight at his restaurant on rue balzac in paris, i was absolutely thrilled!

a friend last night asked me for recommendations to visit paris for a a week-end. and so, i have decided to write a blog post in case you might be interested. of course, these are based on a perhaps a strange idea that when i go 3-4 times per year, i like to feel as though i live there and try to do things as i think i would if i would really live in the beautiful city of love that is paris, the eternal!

Travelling to Venice can be as frustrating as it can be thrilling & unforgetable. In fact, Venice is my favourite city in the entire world. I love her w/ a passion. The thing is, it takes patience & curiosity to reap the rewards that she can offer. Especially in "calle" off the beaten path. Actually, it is the only that Venice can be appreciated to its gloriest.

It's a little ironic that most of my friends look for new experiences as they travel & what satisfies me the most as I do is the comfort of the déjà-vu...

Nowadays, as I travel, I love to return to old places, stay in the same rooms, & eat at the same restaurants as I have always done. Friedrichshafen, where I have returned at this time for the last 20 year exactly gives me that satisfaction.

Fantastic! Eataly in the The Dubai Mall is a wonderful example of the things that are so right about Italy. Italian's passion for food & for wine is a national treasure & very exportable, even in the most counterintuitive countries...

Frankly, I have always had an ambivalent "relationship" with natural wines. I am not sure why. Perhaps it is many of the wines that put me off. Perhaps it is the type of people who seem to insist on waxing lyrical about wines that are either too volatile or oxidised. You know the type, a little smug who discard everything that is not "natural" as being rubbish, even though the very example they are using to make their point is actually rubbish...